Sunday, December 18, 2011

Tree
Jane Hirshfield

It is foolish
to let a young redwood
grow next to a house.

Even in this
one lifetime,
you will have to choose.

That great calm being,
this clutter of soup-pots and books--

Already the first branch tips brush at the window.
Softly, calmly,
immensity taps at your life.

Sunday, December 4, 2011

From Wiggle 3-34

Dogfish

Some kind of relaxed and beautiful thing
kept flickering in with the tide
and looking around.
Black as a fisherman's boot,
with a white belly.

If you asked for a picture I would have to draw a smile
under the perfectly round eyes and above the chin,
which was rough
as a thousand sharpened nails.

And you know
what a smile means,
don't you?

I wanted
the past to go away, I wanted
to leave it, like another country; I wanted
my life to close, and open
like a hinge, like a wing, like the part of the song
where it falls
down over the rocks: an erosion, a discovery;
I wanted
to hurry into the work of my life; I wanted to know,
whoever I was, I was

alive
for a little while.

It was evening, and no longer summer.
Three small fish, I don't know what they were,
huddled in the highest ripples
as it came swimming in again, effortless, the whole body
one gesture, one black sleeve
that could fit easily around
the bones of three small fish.

Also I wanted
to be able to love. And we all know
how that one goes,
don't we?
Mary Oliver

From Wiggle 3-34

Slowly

The dogfish tore open the soft basins of water.

You don't want to hear the story
of my life, and anyway
I don't want to tell it, I want to listen

to the enormous waterfalls of the sun.

And anyway it's the same old story
a few people just trying,
one way or another,
to survive.

Mostly, I want to be kind.
And nobody, of course, is kind,
or mean,
for a simple reason.

And nobody gets out of it, having to
swim through the fires to stay in
this world.

And look! Look! Look! I think those little fish
better wake up and dash themselves away
from the hopeless future that is
bulging toward them.

And probably,
if they don't waste time
looking for an easier world,

they can do it.

Mary Oliver

Saturday, November 26, 2011

From Wiggle 3-34

who are you, little i
(five or six years old)
peering from some high

window, at the gold

of november sunset

(and feeling: that if day
has to become night
this is a beautiful way)

e.e. cummings

Monday, November 7, 2011

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Wednesday, September 21, 2011

from Wiggle 3-15

"In Cold Storm Light"

In cold storm light
I watch the sandrock
canyon rim.

The wind is met
with the smell of pinon
The wind is cold
with the sound of juniper.
And then
out of the thick ice sky
running swiftly
pounding
swirling above the treetops

the snow elk come,
moving, moving,
white song
storm wind in the branches.

And when the elk have passed
behind them
a crystal train of snowflakes
strands of mist
tangled in rock
and leaves.

-Leslie Marmon Silko

Monday, September 19, 2011

from "Song of the Universal"

....
In spiral routes, by long detours (as a much-tacking ship upon the sea)
For it, the partial to the permanent flowing,
For it the real to the ideal tends.
....
For it, the mystic evolution,
Not the right only justified, what we call evil also justified.
....
Electric, antiseptic yet, cleaving, suffusing all,
only the good is universal.
....
Over the mountain-growth's disease and sorrow,
an uncaught bird is ever hovering, hovering,
high in the purer, happier air.
....
Oh the blest eyes, the happy hearts,
That see, that know the guiding thread so fine,
Along the mighty labyrinth.
Walt Whitman

"All Is Truth"

O ME, man of slack faith so long!
Standing aloof--denying portions so long;

Only aware to-day of compact, all-diffused truth;

Discovering to-day there is no lie, or form of lie, and can be none,

but grows as inevitably upon itself as the truth does upon

itself,

Or as any law of the earth, or any natural production of the earth

does.



(This is curious, and may not be realized immediately--But it must be

realized;

I feel in myself that I represent falsehoods equally with the rest,

And that the universe does.)



Where has fail'd a perfect return, indifferent of lies or the truth?

Is it upon the ground, or in water or fire? or in the spirit of man?

or in the meat and blood?



Meditating among liars, and retreating sternly into myself, I see

that there are really no liars or lies after all,

And that nothing fails its perfect return--And that what are called

lies are perfect returns,

And that each thing exactly represents itself, and what has preceded

it,

Ant that the truth includes all, and is compact, just as much as

space is compact,
And that there is no flaw or vacuum in the amount of the truth--but

that all is truth without exception;

And henceforth I will go celebrate anything I see or am,

And sing and laugh, and deny nothing.

Walt Whitman

from "Not a Day on Any Calendar"

This is not a day for asking questions,
not a day on any calendar.

This day is conscious of itself.

Today is a lover, bread, and gentleness,

more manifest than saying can say.

Thoughts take form with words,

but this daylight is beyond and before

thinking and imagining.

Rumi

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